So I’m staring at a Rolling Stone cover hanging on the wall. It has the following plastered over it: Hot 1991 – Winona Ryder / Who’s Hip, What’s Funny, And How To Stay Cool / The Famous Hot List. So what has changed since 1991? Well, Winona Ryder is a clichéd punch line for celebrity kleptomania. Who’s Hip? That tagline is no longer sexy enough for Rolling Stone. Circa 2005, Hip is Lame. This cover, a decade and a half later, would be more hardcore. How about Christina Aguilara nude with a guitar covering her naughty bits? Or Britney Spears doing a faux-Lolita spread? The Winona Ryder cover may have been scandalous in 1991 – her in a nightie flashing her bedroom eyes. But now, “sexiness” is to let the deep down hardcore slut bust out. The justification is that “Daddy don’t preach”, that personal freedom and expression means getting right in your fucking face. Sure, the body is the property of the self. But please don’t think that a magazine cover spread or constant commodification of one’s self-image somehow furthers the cause of women around the world. I'm not that naive.
The engine of colonialism is not fueled by military aggression. What drives colonialism is cultural propaganda. At the heart of any society is its cultural customs.
The west, from the time of Rome to that of Great Britain’s colonial empire, has understood the importance of exporting customs, in addition to hawking products and methods of governance. Culture is an integral part to the governance of a territory. To build or “construct” a system of meaning or a means to contentment, it assuages rebellious inclinations any indigenous peoples harbour in opposition to an external sovereign power. Power, hence, cannot be exercised merely upon the body politic, but in shaping the collective consciousness and, more importantly, particular wills of a people. Culture builds and sustains the illusion. That is not to say that the illusion is fearsomely evil. That is no always the case. But precisely because cultural propaganda, if executed shrewdly, can appear neither fearsome nor evil is how it has effectiveness at all.
